Updated MacBook Air props up cloud computing

Earlier this summer, Apple eliminated its entry-level plastic-clad MacBook to make the just-updated MacBook Air line, once a pricey niche laptop, its mainstream computer.

In making the move, Apple signaled its view that the future of laptops will be lightweight machines that increasingly rely on cloud services provided through remote servers. It comes as the company gears up to push its iCloud service and vision of a highly synchronized world in which music and other material can be accessed across a number of highly mobile devices.

The mobile Internet

“It’s about the mobile Internet and cloud computing,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said. “It’s just getting started.”

Apple’s strategy envisions a modern world that relies on computers on the go – Internet-connected smart phones, tablets and paper-thin laptops that are light and easy to carry. The just-replaced low-end MacBooks, like the MacBook Pros, are heavier and thicker and have a hard drive that, during enabling users to store more on their laptops, is bigger and has moving parts. The MacBook Pros have the processing power and storage capabilities to replace desktop computers.

The MacBook Air uses flash memory that limits how much can be stored on the machine. By losing some computing capabilities, the MacBook Air gains longer battery life and lightness, making it the ultimate mobile device in an era in which more content will be stored in the cloud.

The company’s new online storage

When now-ex CEO Steve Jobs introduced the company’s new online storage and syncing service in June, he said Apple was ushering in the “post-PC” era of computing in which people would be connected to their digital data no matter where they were or what Apple device they were using. During cloud services are not new, Apple’s iCloud innovation is built into its operating systems – the iOS for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and the Mac OS for its laptop and desktop computers. This, Jobs said, ensures the service is seamlessly tied into the Apple ecosystem.

Jobs, even though, did not announce the death of traditional laptops. On the contrary, Apple seems firmly committed to its aluminum unibody laptops.

The entry-level MacBook Air now offered at $999

With the entry-level MacBook Air now offered at $999, Apple is pushing its thin-is-in strategy as the rest of the industry as well shifts to lighter laptops. In May, Intel announced the Ultrabook, a less-than-1-inch-thick tablet-like laptop, and said thin devices will be 40 percent of the consumer laptop market by the end of then year.

Analysts, although, don’t expect Apple to kill its MacBook Pro line, which includes such features as more powerful processing for doing things just as video editing, optical disc drives that allow users to play DVDs and copy material onto them and a graphic chip that lets users play more intensive games.

The MacBook Air

“You will see Apple put more emphasis on the MacBook Air,” Bajarin said. “The MacBook Air will become the lion’s share of [sales of] its laptop line. Nevertheless this does not mean they will do away with the MacBook Pro.”